This is my first newsletter since losing my dear dad on Valentines Day after a freak accident. During this hiatus, I have stepped back to grieve, recover, reflect, and rebuild. While it’s never easy to lose a loved one, it’s a part of the dance of life. This month’s Personal Mastery section describes what I learned from his passing and how that is changing my own life and business. This may be my most significant issue ever because of what I share.
NEW GOODIES COMING! My new focus will be on distilling and sharing the wisdom I have gained in 35+ years as a management consultant, trainer, and leadership coach in 36 countries. You’ll soon get to "tap my brain" and benefit from all my lessons learned, mistakes and insights in the fields of strategic planning, management, and personal excellence. I’m committed to develop fresh new approaches to personal and organization transformation and making them available in a way that is easy to digest and apply.
In July, I’ll launch my new Strategic Planning Academy to help you master that critical skill set. Can’t wait to share it with you!
SHAMLESSLY SEEKING PRAISE! What makes me proud as a pup with a new collar are the surprise emails from someone who takes time to share the great results they achieved after attending my seminars. In fact, I love it so much that! I’m shamelessly soliciting testimonials — one or two or three sentences about what you learned from me, how you applied it, and the results you got. This might be in the areas of strategic planning, project management, logical framework applications, emotional intelligence, or personal reinvention. By sending your colorful and quotable quote, you grant me permission to share with the world, so please include your name, title, and organization. I have a very special thank you gift for the first ten people who respond. So if you’ve been too shy or busy to make my day, now is your time to write me at Terry@ManagementPro.com.
GET CERTIFIED! Want to expand your skillset and get recognized for having the most important career competency anyone can have these days? Now you can take your career to the next level by earning your certification as a Strategic Planning Professional from the Associate Strategic for Planning (ASP). For the last three years, I’ve served on a national ASP task force of planning experts, and we have identified the core competencies and developed an examination path leading to certification.
This is not just for formal strategic planners – it’s for anyone involved in planning – for engineers, managers, HR folks, generalists, subject matter experts, consultants, and just about anyone who wants to stand out by adding a unique skill set and getting designation. I believe this will be the hottest professional certification anyone can have. Adding this distinction to your mainstream profession brands you with a unique career positioning. Check out full details at the video listed below.
Now, a preview of the rest of the issue:
Guest Article – Six Ways to Prevent Corporate Tunnel Vision By Fast Company Expert Blogger Adrian Ott.
Project of the Month – invites you to critique a project to develop a solar manufacturing capacity in Haiti, a country in desperate need of jobs. Put your knowledge of Logical Framework concepts to work by improving this plan.
Book of the Month – reviews an exciting book, Adrian Ott’s the 24 Hour Customer.
Laugh Out Loud – present a fable that seems appropriate following Anthony Weiner’s folly.
Six Ways to Prevent Corporate Tunnel Vision
By Fast Company Expert Blogger Adrian Ott
Is your company at risk of being blindsided by competitors? Here are six questions that can uncover hidden risks and opportunities.
Success breeds complacency. Business school case studies are chock-full of innovators, and Pow! In comes a new player and customers are suddenly gaining value from somewhere else. Such formerly high-flying firms default to the approaches that brought them initial success, even when markets change.
Such upheaval is evident everywhere in the business world today. Did you know that big-box retailer Wal-Mart now competes with Comcast, and Netflix for movie streaming on TVs? Or that a business-to-business network equipment giant Cisco now competes with Kodak and Sony for consumer camcorders?
Most market incumbents stick with their current products, business models and industry for their entire existence, such that they don't see opportunities to move--or the risk of new entrants. Such tunnel vision presents a tremendous opportunity for savvy executives looking outside their current base to grow revenue or maintain leadership.
To Win, Look B.E.Y.O.N.D. Business Boundaries
My work with large corporate clients has uncovered a set of six questions that can uncover hidden risks and opportunities--I call these questions the B.E.Y.O.N.D.™ evaluation (Business Models, Encroachment, SimplifY Products, Overall Customer, Next Wave, and Distribution).
1. Business Models: Can a competitor come in with a new business model and explode the economics of your industry? Industry players often cluster around a fixed group of business models or pricing structures. Automobile manufacturers, for instance, all earn revenues from a combination of sales and interest on loans and leases, but does it have to be that way? Could a competitor create a free or near-free car and charge for mileage, the way cellular service companies give away phones and charge for minutes? (Electric car company A Better Place is looking into it.) The point is that inside many companies the incumbent business model can feel like the "way things are done" right until someone else comes and shows a different way. The key is to rethink your options before someone else does.
2. Encroachment: Do you evaluate the same competitors now as you did three years ago? Digital convergence, globalization, and the battle for limited consumer time and attention are causing businesses to expand beyond traditional industry boundaries, as Wal-Mart has expanded from retail CD and DVD sales into streaming video. Industry landscape analysis must take these shifts into account. Remove the industry blinders.
3. SimplifY: Can your category be simplified? Is "good enough" at a lower price sufficient for most customers? Companies ranging from Japanese automakers, to Southwest Airlines, to Costco have built their success by simplifying or providing lower cost options within existing categories. Who is doing the same in yours?
4. Overall Customer: How well do you evaluate the broader customer context independent of your products? Consider the fact that network solutions provider Cisco has recently entered the mature enterprise server market occupied by incumbents IBM and HP. Cisco views its value as offering a broad spectrum of "Cloud computing" services--not just hardware or implementation. Evaluating consumers from a 360-degree view including sequential tasks as well as simultaneous activity (multitasking, concurrent brands, media) will uncover helpful insights in today's three-screen society (mobile, TV, PC).
5. Next Wave: Do you regularly seek the "next wave" of technology or methods to serve customers, even when doing so will make your current products obsolete? Blockbuster missed the wave to mail order movies and now appears late to the game for both low-cost kiosk rentals and streaming video, resulting in significant loss of market share and concerns about ongoing viability.
6. Distribution: Do you have the same channel partner portfolio mix as three years ago? The emergence of mobile and software as a service/cloud technologies, creates many new options. Opportunities with alliance partners and affiliates are also changing the landscape. Consider the global market reach of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and PayPal.
A final question to ask is whether your current team is capable of providing a perspective beyond current industry paradigms. Blind spots may exist in your corporate radar. If you answered "Yes" to any of the questions above, your business may be vulnerable.
Your answers to the B.E.Y.O.N.D.™ evaluation will rapidly identify game-changing opportunities and actions for your business to secure leadership in today's turbulent markets. Are you prepared?
I’m grateful that my book Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Practical Tools for Leaders and Teams is making its way around the world because the simple organizing concepts apply in so many contexts. And I’m especially heartened when people use it to do the right things – to improve lives of individuals, advance their companies, and in this case, create jobs and expand national capacity – in an impoverished nation.
Last week I received a draft Logical Framework project plan to establish a renewable energy business cluster in Haiti. Even before, an earthquake devastated Haiti in Jan 2010; Haiti was one of the poorest nations in the world. It is possible that a Renewable energy manufacturing industry can start there and provide jobs? That’s the goal of the LogFrame from Mrs. Rebecca McDonald, who is developing an October renewable energy expo to jump-start the effort.
She is among a group of an Australian philanthropists and Haiti to make a difference.
This LogFrame is not perfect – no first draft is. But it’s a solid start.
If you want to review and suggest improvements, she would like to hear. Use the Logical Framework checklist on page 208-209 of my book. (Hint at what to improve – there is a jumble between goal and purpose measures).
You can send your suggestions to her at rebecca_mcdonald@bigpond.com, with a cc to me at Terry@ManagementPro.com.
I was ready to teach a project strategy seminar in Columbus for the Institute for Management Studies when I received a text message that my 84-year-old father had a freak accident and was in critical but stable condition. I called my wife and sisters, already at the hospital with dad, but asked not to be given any details just then because there was nothing I could do by rushing home right away. I needed to keep my head clear to deliver a quality seminar to a waiting audience and make it through the seminar. The next day I landed in Seattle and learned that dad had apparently fell on unprotected steam vents in the steam room of a health club in Spokane, suffering severe burns to 22% of his body. He was helicoptered to a Harborview hospital, a Seattle trauma center. The intensive care medical staff admitted this was unfamiliar territory, as they had never treated a man his age with such deep steam burns in his legs and groin.
Dad survived the first surgery to cut away all the dead flesh and cover him with artificial skin. But over the next few days, he weakened and was put on a ventilator to assist his breathing. On Valentines Day, we (my two sisters, my wife , myself and the medical staff) made a prayerful, thoughtful, and tearful decision to remove life support. Given the grave injuries, and the diminished quality of life he would have after another month of hospitalization, multiple operations, and an amputation, life support was removed and dad was put on a "care and comfort" track to ease the suffering in his final hours. We knew that was the right decision, the one he would have made.
I will recall forever my last conversation with him, he damaged and dying, me fragile and crying. He would make small sounds to indicate he heard my words if not completely understood. I thanked him, I apologized for those times I screwed up, asked forgiveness when I disappointed him, and made a firm commitment to be a better person and make him proud.
After we said our tearful goodbyes we held his hands now, swollen to massive size by his body’s reponse to the burns, his breathing gradually slowed until it ceased.
Anyone who has ever lost a parent (or worse, a child) knows the intense pain of losing a loved one. Ten years ago, my mom suffered a disabling stroke which destroyed her speech and mobility and dad switched from being a gruff and independent man to a sweet and devoted caretaker, refusing to put her in a nursing home and instead tending her at home till her final day. There is a bittersweet irony in that they both passed on Valentines Day, with their children at bedside.
You can never be prepared, and your life is forever changed as you feel vulnerable, orphaned, and next in line. You reset your life set back to basics.
He was a simple man, a 7th grade educated kid from a North Dakota farm family of 12. Most of his life he was a cat-skinner (relax PETA, this means running big Caterpillar bull dozers), working on dam building projects, clearing the forest land to form a smooth basin for the huge lake behind the dam. My fondest memory of him at work was sitting beside him in the "cat" one moonless night as he "punched fires" in North California, — dozing the smoldering remnants of huge stumps and log debris into a 10 foot high pile, and watching the sparks shoot five hundred feet in the air. It was magical! Another fond memory was playing catch when I was in Little League – I can hear ball smack the mitt and smell the oiled leather. More recently, we attached a Tony Robbins event and walked bare foot on five together, which gave him bragging rights at the donut shop.
While my life is comfortable now, the growing up years were tough. My childhood years were spent moving from dam project to project, city to city (8 different elementary schools!), usually switching in mid-year. It was simple, just hitch the trailer to the pickup and move on to the next town. Money was scarce, there were plenty of unemployed times, and all my clothing came from rummage sales. When I graduated from high school, I still lived in a trailer house with less than 300 square feet of room. But I learned the value of hard work from him and his favorite catch phrase – "taking action"
Dad – people called him "Willie". Dad’s chief entertainment was going to the Indian casinos and playing the quarter slot machines. He could nurse a twenty-dollar roll of quarters into a whole day of fun.
There was a waiting burial plot awaiting him, next to my mom’s. But he was not the religious type and he detested going to funeral parlors.
We had never discussed funeral wishes while alive, but it dawned on us that dad would not want to go out gloomy. So we rented a casino room in his favorite casino and held a spirited celebration of life. I created a large-screen video presentation chronicling his life sifting through old photo albums and 8mm videos from the 1950’s, with photos that included most of the guests. His only grandson Nicky played the violin. We played a spirited version of "Willie Won’t Go" from YouTube. People told colorful stories. We laughed, sang, and cried together.
He would have been pleased that we had a beautiful custom cake made in the shape of a slot machine, complete with gold coins spewing as the cherries lined up with the legend "thanks Willie". Might as well send him on his journey with a flourish!
I just want to say thanks Dad and Mom, thanks for everything. You did the very best job you could, and I am grateful. I still want to make you proud, and I’m committed to creating my best work ever – building the Strategic Planning Academy – and dedicating it to you.
I’ll meet you on the other side some day and we will play catch again.
Postscript:
If your parents are still live, do the difficult thing and have the necessary discussions. Do you know their desires? Are the right papers in place? Here is a helpful article to get you started...
The 24-Hour Customer: New Rules for Winning in a Time-Starved, Always-Connected Economy
By Adrian C. Ott
Reviewed by Terry Schmidt
Everyone has heard the expression "time is money", but you’ll come away from this book knowing that "money is time" in an era when everyone is overwhelmed and stressed.
Adrian Ott and I were both speakers at the 2011 Association for Strategic Planning Conference, and it was a delight to experience her passionate presentation of the "new rules" that drive consumer behavior. Her basic premise is that more than ever, companies that deliver products and services that recognize the customers’ limited willingness to invest scarce time and attention will win.
As consumers, we’ve all experienced this in one form or another. Recently I spotted a terrific buy on a fancy barbecue grill at Home Depot, before I realized that the hour or so my klutzy mechanical skills would require me to assemble the barbecue make the purchase one I could not afford.
Ott shows how insightful companies deliver value by shifting boundaries of time and attention, providing instant gratification, and leveraging: captive time". Busy people – and that is all of us -- will appreciate her handy "two minute capsules" that summarize main points of each chapter.
Adrian’s book has made several top-ten lists of best marketing books, but the implications go beyond marketing and challenge each of us to identify how we can b e easier to do business with. The book provides sufficient analytical depth to prove her premise in multiple ways, and solid tips for those who want to capitalize on her insights. Enjoy it!
One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided since the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. So, the farmer invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed shovels, and began to shovel dirt into the well.
All the other farm animals were very upset about this, because the donkey was their friend. But they discovered there was nothing they could do to help him. At first, when the donkey realized what was happening, he cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw.
With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off, and take a step up on the dirt as it piled up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well, and trotted off!
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. But each trouble can be a stepping-stone. What happens to you isn't nearly as important as how you react to it. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not giving up!
Shake it off, and take a step up!
Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.
NOW...
The donkey later came back, and bit the farmer who had tried to bury him. The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.
MORAL FROM TODAY'S LESSON:
When you do something wrong, and try to cover your ass, it always comes back to bite you.